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Friday, 11 March 2011

Long sets

There seems to be a spate of nights set up by non-DJing promoters that book large name DJs to play all night - 5/6/8 hours whatever the opening hours are. I approve of this, not sure why its come about, maybe the easyjetsetters have come back from Berghain and realised that these DJs are actually capable of playing long sets...

Either way it gives people chances to see 2 things...

See the older guys come out of hibernation curious about one of these 'new kids' playing a long set, and remonstrate at the back of the room "why when I was 2 years old we used to play 128 hour sets, tell a better story than JK Rowling AND we'd have to sweep the broken glass up with our bare hands...", all whilst complaining that kids these days are all using sync lock and having an easy time of it...

Secondly I hope it makes people realise that not everyone has been inspired by Mozart, so don't come expecting early night ambiance, classic disco, so don't come expecting to hear Love Sensation, early Chicago house, so don't come expecting to see a Trax record spinning...

Some of the people spinning at these nights are younger yes, and they've grown up with technology that makes new things possible, not just old things easier to accomplish, and they may not have been influenced by that dubby disco plate from 1973, some of them may be influenced by Richie Hawtin, Robert Hood, Daniel Bell... Hell some of them may even have been influenced by the Tidy Boys, Euphoric Trance Breakdown from the early '00s...

I am looking forward to going to one of these nights, the 'A night with Derrick Carter' one looks good...

So don't complain about the DJ not playing THAT disco classic you thought they must have been influenced by because they play house (and we all know that house DJs are influenced by disco don't we...), just go with open ears and enjoy them stretch their legs in public for what may be for some the first time in a long time or ever...

1 comment:

Being a (very) old school DJ the 'sets we played used to be from around 9pm when the club opened to 3am (sometimes 4) when it closed. When I came out of 'retirement' and asked to play gigs again I was really surprised by the shortness of the sets. I recently did a gig where I played 10pm - 2am...lovely!